TEHRAN, September 23 - Iraqi judicial officials have handed down life terms to four people over membership in the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group and involvement in acts of terror in the war-ravaged Arab country’s northern provinces of Kirkuk and Nineveh.

TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club(YJC) -Abdul Sattar al-Biraqdar, the spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, said the Central Criminal Court of Iraq, which is the country's flagship criminal justice institution, found the defendants guilty of “membership in the so-called Islamic police of the terrorist Daesh group, and undergirding weapons training.”

Biraqdar added that the convicts confessed to having received generous sums of money from Daesh terror outfit, emphasizing that the verdicts passed on them are in accordance with under Article IV of Iraq’s Anti-Terrorism Law.

On September 19, an Iraqi court sentenced a deputy of purported Daesh leader Ibrahim al-Samarrai, aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to death by hanging, after he was found guilty of orchestrating a series of terrorist attacks.

Biraqdar said in a statement that the Karkh Criminal Court passed the ruling on Ismail Alwan Salman al-Ithawi in accordance with Article IV of the Anti-Terrorism Law. Ithawi was extradited from Turkey earlier this year, having fled Syria.

The spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council added that the high-profile Daesh figure held several positions in the terror group. He was apparently in charge of the Committee on Issuing Fatwas (religious creeds) and a member of the committee tasked with developing curricula for Daesh terrorists.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, pledged on June 30 to hunt down Daesh terrorists across Iraq after a series of attacks and abductions carried out by the terrorist group.

“We will chase the remaining cells of terrorism in their hideouts and we will kill them, we will chase them everywhere, in the mountains and the desert,” Abadi said.

Abadi declared the end of military operations against Daesh in the Arab country on December 9, 2017.

On July 10 that year, the Iraqi prime minister had formally declared victory over Daesh in Mosul, which served as the terrorists’ main urban stronghold in the conflict-ridden Arab country.

In the run-up to Mosul's liberation, Iraqi army soldiers and volunteer Hashd al-Sha’abi fighters had made sweeping gains against Daesh.

Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January 2017 after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19 last year.

Daesh began a terror campaign in Iraq in 2014, overrunning vast swathes in lightning attacks.